In my short time on this Earth I have read articles upon articles about women of all kinds. I've read countless pieces regarding the struggles they go through just because they are women.

Here is the story of where being a woman started affecting me negatively in an obvious way.

There is a live music concert that happens every Thursday around the corner from my school and one of my friends had been asking me to come along with them for a while now. So one of my girl friends and I met up with our two guy friends to listen to some pretty great throwbacks from a talented live band. I was innocently laying down on the blanket we had laid out when I looked up and noticed two young men standing together staring at me. I saw these two men earlier standing alone and I had made accidental eye contact with each of them. At first, I played it off as paranoia.

Then I made eye contact with them again.

The third time I made eye contact with them I began to get the feeling these direct eye-contact encounters weren't accidental. I sat up as I felt uncomfortable and thought maybe the way I was laying down made me appear to be sexualizing myself. But, that wasn't it.

When I sat up they were still staring. I turned to one of my guy friends and said I felt uncomfortable because these two men were staring at me and he said he had noticed it too as they were standing about 5-7 feet away from us now. When the concert ended, my guy friends decided it would be a good idea to walk me back to my car in case the two young men decided to follow me.

I honestly thought I was being over dramatic when suddenly we turned around and we saw one of the men following me. We noticed this as we were coming up to my car. So we turned around and went to notify the police officers around the area of the concert. In the mean time the man sat on a car he probably thought was mine and waited for me to return. When the police officers were on their way over the young man saw them and left before they could get to him. I was escorted to my car and I drove home that night safe and sound.

I was one of the lucky ones in this situation.

It hit me on my drive back home all of the ways this could have gone wrong.

What would have happened if my guy friends weren't there to protect me? What if the police officers didn't take me seriously? What would have happened if I silenced my intuition?

There are at least three things wrong with this situation.

1. These young men didn't leave me alone when it was obvious I didn't want anything to do with them

2. I had to censor my body language because of the way I grew up in society thinking that it's my fault if a guy harasses me because I dressed a certain way, laid down a certain way, stretched a certain way, etc.

3. My safety was forced to be left in the hands of the men around me. If they hadn't be been there I think this story would have ended very differently for me.

I still to this day do not know what those men wanted, but I do know that whatever they did want wasn't going to be good for me.

I'm so mad that our world is like this but the point of me writing this article is to spread awareness on how important it is that women of any age in any location to always be aware of her surroundings.

Some tips to keep yourself as safe as possible could be things like:

-Travel in numbers.

-Don't down play situations that seem strange or uncomfortable.

-Know that it is okay to feel uncomfortable in situations like these and it isn't your fault.

-If you feel like something is off, go report it to the local security officer or police officer.

-And most importantly, ALWAYS listen to your gut.

Let me repeat. Always. No matter what. Listen to your intuition. It will never fail you.